vegan, skeptic, atheist, libertarian

I’m Not Hyperskeptical, You’re Just Unreliable

…was a great title to a great post I was writing about how just because you tell me something, no matter how earnest, it is usually not sufficient for me to just outright believe you. I had a great example of how a prominent “critical thinker” couldn’t correctly relay facts to his or her readers because of their inability to see through their biases. I even had a list of happenings that whenever they are written about, they are written about incorrectly.

And then I deleted every word of it. Why? Because for those who need to read and understand it, they would do neither. It would probably been misconstrued by some as a justification to ignore complaints and accusations. And lastly, after the events this week, when I struggled with the temptation to directly jump into the fray and still get blocked, I just don’t think it’s worth it.

Promoting skepticism is worth it of course. The politics of power? The constant stream of narcissistic social media drive by attacks? None of that is worth it. What I’m about to say is an unformed, unsupported idea that has popped into my head: The Internet has been a terrible thing for the skepticism movement, and the good that the internet has done is being drowned out now. I can’t back this up, it’s just my gut reaction that should be made into a hypothesis and researched.

So back to my beloved Skeptunes, back to reading my favorite skeptic blogs, and back to listening to skeptic podcasts I go. I’ll hangout with the adults, the children can continue to go Lord of the Flies.